Obama: Continuing to hit Romney on outsourcing

The Obama campaign is going after Mitt Romney as an “Outsourcer in Chief” and running spots in Virginia, Iowa, and Ohio.

And the president was hitting that message yesterday in New Hampshire and Boston: “President Barack Obama, campaigning in Mitt Romney's backyard, criticized his Republican rival anew Monday for what his re-election campaign says is a record of shipping American jobs overseas,” the Boston Globe writes.

“Obama is hauling in millions of dollars for his re-election bid as he warns that Democrats will face a fundraising onslaught from Republicans during the fall campaign,” the AP writes. “Obama was to collect more than $2.3 million at fundraisers in Atlanta and Miami on Tuesday following top-dollar events Monday night in Boston.”

In a moment, last night, Obama re-learned an important political lesson: know your crowd and, well, don’t joke about the Red Sox, NBC’s Shawna Thomas reports. Obama, an avid Chicago White Sox fan, ribbed the Boston faithful about the Red Sox trading third baseman Kevin Youkilis to those other Sox. That elicited boos from many in the crowd.

“I’m just saying,” Obama began, “he’s going to have to change the color of his sock. I didn’t think I’d get any boos out of here. But I guess I should not have brought up baseball.” But That didn’t stop the jeering crowd either. Finally the president said, “My mistake. You’ve got to know your crowd.”

Rarely, does one hear the President of the United States get booed at a fundraiser, but many of the 1,800 people in the room who paid at least $144 to be there, didn’t take kindly to the president joking about Youkilis, the beloved Red Sox “sluggah.” But it took one woman yelling out, “We still love you” to break the humorous tension in the room. The crowd laughed and the president moved on to his stump speech and standing ovations.

“Turkey's prime minister, responding to the downing of a Turkish jet by Syrian forces, said Tuesday that Turkish military will respond to any future violation of its border by Syrian military elements,” AP writes, adding, “The head of the NATO military alliance called the downing of the jet unacceptable on Tuesday, shortly after Turkey briefed NATO's North Atlantic Council in discussions held under Article 4 of NATO's founding treaty, which allows a NATO member to request consultations if its security has been threatened.”

The New York Times this morning: “Warning Syria not to test its resolve, Turkey sought support on Tuesday from its partners in the NATO alliance at an emergency meeting of envoys in Brussels called after Syria shot down a Turkish warplane over the Mediterranean Sea.” Prime Minister Erdogan said this morning: "Every military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria in a manner that constitutes a security risk or danger would be considered as a threat and would be treated as a military target.”

But some context on the prospect of intervention: “Western defense analysts said the incident had shown that, unlike the example of Libya last year, when NATO planes enforced a no-fly zone as rebels pressed for the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Syrian military could likely offer much stiffer resistance.”

“U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has vowed to hold Syria to account, while Britain’s foreign minister said Damascus won’t be allowed to act with impunity,” AP notes, adding, however, some context: “But for all the hard talk, the prospect of Western military intervention in Syria remains remote, at best.”